FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Matt and any one else of cause
did a few tests with the tuning fork over the past few days , as usual this is going to be a matter of timing to get the pollen when its ripe or fertile or just ready !!, got a number of flowers open now so just now went and removed the covering petals from a flower so it did not impeding the entry of the fork and cause the vibration to stop as quickly , as soon as the fork comes in contact with any thing it quickly stops its buzzzzz !! I did the buzzing with the fork and no pollen fell on my paper below , ?? but when I did it again from a different angel where the sun was shinning through ,I buzzed it again and saw the ultra fine pollen drifting off , it was so fine like mist , this is what I have seen so far , and hoping it is the actual pollen , as not ever seen it before! may be wrong , have you tried it yet ??
John

Still waiting for my flowers to ripen *****YAWN*****

Linton use a heat lamp he he he man got heaps coming up now , did another flower and it did the same thing very very fine like dust coming of them !! so ?? may be it is the pollen ?? trouble is I cant see it on the white paper ??
J

Thanks for the update on the Heliamphora pollen John! The "fine mist" of pollen is what I've seen in the videos as well. I've yet to be able to recreate it though.

snapperhead51 wrote:trouble is I cant see it on the white paper ??

Right, it SOOOO fine that it's nearly impossible to see. Try using a piece of black plastic to collect it. It should stand out a bit more on a black background.

Hi Matt
yes was just thinking about that last night !!,when I saw those videos I actually could not see the pollen dust eyes not so good these days ,man it is so fine !! will have another go to day see what happens
thanks for the advice
Lin ton come on man get the whip out he he eh you will have to move down with us low landers if this keeps up ha ha ha

one thing though , it took about 10 buzzzes to get the pollen to start ?? as the fork will only buzz for a very short time once you connect it the the pollen pods so you need to repeat the process many many times it seems ??
J

snapperhead51 wrote:one thing though , it took about 10 buzzzes to get the pollen to start ?? as the fork will only buzz for a very short time once you connect it the the pollen pods so you need to repeat the process many many times it seems ??

Interesting. Maybe that's why I wasn't able to get any pollen out of my Heliamphora stamen. I didn't try that many times, but I did try quite a few times. I know what you mean about the "buzz" not lasting very long.

Matt just found some thing very interesting while buzzing the stamen, while stuffing a round the flower broke off from the stem yesterday , disaster I though ! bit not so it seems ,just now after what 24 hours about !! the stamen's are very much active , there is still pollen pouring out from them ?? all so there seems to be more pollen drifting out when buzzing from the top of the stamen's rather than the bottom of them , just a observation !!

just going out to try some thing !!

MATT SUCCESS it worked I have no got pollen from H.nutans giant !!
Ok from the flower that I broke off there is pollen on my purple sheet of paper did not have black ,but as I just said it is now mostly from the top of the stamens, there is heaps too, as we only need a very very tiny bit can cross pollinate now I hope next experiment coming up in a few days I hope !! still takes many buzzes though !! just going to change that after doing it more just now have found the by putting the fork in the centre of the stamen's from the bottom even more pollen has been extracted have heaps now !! just tried to pollinate a tequila but the flower may be too old all ready !!
J

the pollen extracted today and the flower as well with the stamen exposed

WOW! Awesome job John! Now I know what to look for in terms of ripeness of the flower. I think I waited too long or something weird happened to my Heliamphora flower because the stamen never turned yellow and "puffy" looking like the ones in your photo. They fairly quickly turned brown and shriveled up.

How long after harvesting will the pollen remain viable? With Heliamphora, the stigma of a flower is receptive before the pollen is ripe, after the pollen is ripe, the stigma is apparently no longer receptive, this presumably is to prevent self pollination. So, is it possible to store the collected pollen for a period of time while waiting for another flower to open??

This afternoon I was able to collect a small amount of pollen from my H. pulchella, I have transferred it to another H. pulchella flower with a receptive stigma. I plan to keep repeating the procedure over the next few days until there is either no pollen left, or until there are no flowers left to pollinate and hopefully then I can get some seed.

My method was to prune off all of the upper petals of the flower leaving only a single lower petal behind. When I buzzed the stamens with the tuning fork (removal of the petals made the access of the tuning fork much better), the pollen was deposited on the lower petal and could be easily collected with a fine paintbrush and transferred to the receptive stigma of another flower.

Good questions Linton. I have another one for you John:

How long had the flower been open (how many days) before you were able to harvest the pollen?

Hi Linton
yes getting to that part will give a description of it very soon just busy now with prison ministry and got the flu too so soon !! early next week
j

Matt and Linton and all
Linton your pollen extraction sounds great was all most at that stage when the flower broke off when trying to take the petals off !!think next time I will cut the petals off like you did ,instead of trying to rip them off
I do not have any idea how long the pollen will keep ?? just now I have mine in the fridge on the paper in a zip lock bag waiting for the next flower to open ,I would assume it would be viable like most other pollens for a few months ?? will have to do some research !!
yes from what I have read the stigma is ripe before the pollen is, and as you said no longer receptive when the pollen is starting to ripen, I believe the stigma is only receptive for a very short time like 3 or 4 days ??!! not sure,could be wrong ,sure I read it was very short time so once a gain vigilance will be in order and some good eyes too,most stigmas look sticky at the receptor when ready and dull off when the time has past ,Nep's are the same !! ,so you are correct, an unusually way of pollination !! indeed .
Matt
well not sure how long the flower was open before the pollen was ripe , I think I was just lucky to have did the extraction when I did , would suggest checking each day till it looks fat and yellow and swollen , the buzzing may encourage the pollen to increase as well , being a natural way of there pollination evolution, may be would help out here I would think to stimulate the stamens ?? may be ! as mine did put out more pollen with more buzzes !! it will take more than just this short experiment to get to know what we are doing right and wrong I would think !!
Linton's approach seems a good way to go , rather than mine was , I will check tomorrow ,as a number of flowers should be ready to open in the next day or so, as its getting warmer here each day witch will help in the flower ripening times.
Its all looking very promising , we will all learn a lot from this and will help others watching our progress as well , but as you well know this is a long term experiment and just getting seed will take a 8 months , then germination to seedling,another year ,and 4 years to mature so its very long term !! is why T/C was done, you dont have any Heli's in T/C do you Matt !!
but even just to pollinate the Heli flower I think is very rewarding ,just in the fact not a lot of people are able to do this, very few people are successful ,so lets hope our efforts are very fruitful for us
J

Matt just a observation with my flowers ,there were not fully open when the pollen was ripe either, only partly open , is why the petals need to be removed !this must be for natural pollination reasons like sarras with there cover petals !!to increase the rates of pollination in the wild ,by forcing the insect to get in to a confined space causing the buzzing and spreading the pollen on them then going to the next flower and depositing it , seems likely !!hence the term buzz pollination !!
I will try to keep a account on the next lot of flowers of the pollen progress for you too one other thing is that when the pollen is done the petals do open up to normal flower expanses , which make sense now ,after seeing them for many years doing this !!
J

Thanks for all of the information John!

snapperhead51 wrote:you dont have any Heli's in T/C do you Matt !!

I actually do have two species of Heliamphora in TC right now, minor and nutans. They grow pretty well in TC.

Linton and Matt and All
A recent try of pollination is looking promising so far , the ovary seems and stress seems to be swelling ooo finger crossed ,well here is what to look for on a heliamphora flower when extracting pollen , on the lower petal you can see hopefully some extracted pollen sitting on the lower petal one shot had a pen pointed at it !
first I opened the petals a bit to pollinate the flower then waited for the Anthers to swell and get yellow , I just tried buzzing them and out came the pollen ,so here are some pic's to show the results and what to look for this is H.minor x hetrodoxa which in actual fact now should be named H.pullchea x hetrodoxa !! because of a resent name change !
J
no pic's loading up just now ?? so will put them up late after work
Sorry Matt my fault I for got to resize them before uploading just to tired and forgot